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“A German is a slave who does not need shackles or a whip to obey his master, just his word or a glance is enough. Slavery resides in himself, in his soul; Spiritual is more terrible than physical slavery. Germany needs to be liberated from within, and trying to do so will not help. “
This quote from H. Heine (1797–1856) was posted on his Facebook account by 59-year-old merchant Dirk Schwarzrock from the ancient Hanseatic city of Stralsund. And the next day, he couldn’t believe with his own eyes, finding an explanation for the media’s concern rather than the erased words of the poet, that the record violates community standards for hate speech and humiliation.
When the tenacious Stralsundian H. Heine’s quote was re-shared, it was soon deleted again and Mr. Schwarzrock’s account was blocked, initially for three days and then for seven days.
Man who grew up in socialist Germany admits: H. Heine’s ban on words surprised him and made him feel like he was in the dark times of the GDR.
1986 I left the SED (United German Socialist Party – ed.) Regime, having previously refused to serve in the SEA (People’s National Army – ed.) And imprisoned for it. Then I could not imagine that the free expression of opinion would be restricted in this way again ”, quotes the daily Bild to D. Schwarzrock.
The man does not promise to give up and, with the help of the famous lawyer Joachim Steinhöfel, he filed a complaint with the Stralsund Administrative Court. A court spokesperson confirmed: “Legal proceedings have been initiated with us. The complaint has already been handed over to the defense of Facebook in Ireland.
Islamists are defended and Islamic critics are blocked
It would be possible not to mention this scandalous case if it were just a sad exception. Unfortunately, this is not the case. After 2017 the German coalition government has adopted the Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz (Netz DG, ed.
Hamed Abdel-Samad, an Egyptian-born political scientist and one of the leading critics of Islam in Germany, has repeatedly been the victim of social media. His Twitter account was blocked after a dispute with an Algerian Islamist. His YouTube channel Hamed.TV, which has 125,000 subscribers, has also been removed without comment, a video in which Abdel-Samad urged young Muslims not to succumb to the teachings of imams to commit suicide.
It is true that the YouTube channel was unblocked by the intervention of a political scientist and prominent representatives of the country’s media. “But what to do for people who do not have a lawyer or are not so well known in the public sphere?” Abdel-Samad, a tireless fighter for a liberal society, rightly asked.
“Islamists are defended and critics of Islam are blocked. We are clearly moving in the wrong direction!” He said.
“For many years, I have warned you that you are full of Islamists on social media. However, Islamic critics’ Facebook and Twitter accounts are often blocked, their videos are removed on YouTube, and Islamist, anti-Western and anti-Israel accounts spreading hate are intact, “he said.
This is probably to blame for the ideological attitudes of these media collaborators: “apparently they follow liberal Islamic or leftist positions and, according to them, determine the hierarchy of hatred and sacrifice,” Abdel-Samad speculated in Die Welt.
Assisted by a foundation run by a former Stasi informant
One such Facebook contributor is the state-funded, left-wing Amadeu Antonio Foundation (AAS), whose main goal is to fight right-wing extremism. ASS joined a working group called Task Force, which, together with the Ministry of Justice, addressed the issue of “hate speech” on the Internet, even before the adoption of the Network Implementation Law.
According to the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb) blog, the foundation produced a brochure entitled ‘Tackling Hate Speech and Comments’ (Umgang mit Hate Speech und Kommentaren im Internet) with an introduction by then Minister of Justice Heiko Maas . orally.
Social media users soon noticed a leftist interpretation of “hate speech” and the corresponding practice of erasure, and felt that they recognized the ideological drawing of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation.
Rumors that the foundation’s own employees are deleting posts they don’t like on the Facebook platform have been fueled by another circumstance: The foundation is run by Anetta Kahane, a former Stasi communist in Germany.
She herself rejected the accusations, calling them “myth”. According to A. Kahanė, fund employees only provide evaluations to Facebook representatives. By the way, what those evaluations are not difficult to notice, knowing the ideological dispositions of the foundation.
The Tagesspiegel newspaper, which spoke to Kahan, also found the website of lawyer J. Steinhöfel, who defends clients affected by Facebook, and gave some examples of “hate speech.” Suppose Facebook removed a post comparing the amount of German unemployment benefit (Harz IV) with financial support given to asylum seekers.
And although the post is written in a professional tone, the account user has been locked out for 24 hours. Another example: a journalist who called the burqa a “stuff bag” in the debate, “contrary to all Western values,” was blocked for a week. And a post by an Antifa activist calling for violence, in Facebook’s view, does not violate community standards, Steinhöfel sarcastically points out.
The lawyer is convinced that the logic of the erasure and the blockade is directed without ambiguity “against the right”. But for Kahane and his foundation to be held responsible for this, “there is, of course, nonsense,” Steinhöfel told Tagesspiegel, while acknowledging that the former Stasi colleague’s use of “hate speech” to fight “It was an unimaginable public relations disaster.” “Both for Facebook and for the Federal Ministry of Justice.
Facebook fears 5 million fines
At the end of February, the extremely paradoxical case of the Netz DG application was widely heard, turning against one of the supporters of the Network Implementation Law, a fighter against “hate speech”, a journalist from the public broadcaster Georg Restle. Restle, editor-in-chief of ARD’s Monitor, made no secret of his outrage when his editorial made a documentary about a racist attack in Hanau, Germany, a year ago. The movie was simply removed, without any explanation.
“Hello Instagram, hello Facebook, could it be our film Monitor on the racist attack in Hanau that violates your directives? Are you serious here? ”- Restle answered on his Twitter account, acutely experiencing the power of the big media gangs with his skin.
The film was soon made available to Instagram and Facebook followers, but the incident revealed the imperfections of the Netz DG Network Implementation Act.
When in 2017 in the spring of 1945, the German coalition government submitted to parliament for its consideration this law against hate speech on the main social networks, and serious doubts arose even within the ruling coalition itself. Even then, the Bundestag’s science service and several lawyers, say former Constitutional Court judge Hans-Jürgen Papier, feared strict requirements for large telemedia providers: tight deadlines (inappropriate content reported by users had to be removed within a week , and “manifestly illegal” content (within 24 hours) and huge fines of 5 million for breaking the law will force companies to remove and block more than necessary. As a result, according to IT experts, it is likely the emergence of “censorship infrastructures”.
A scientific study on the NetzDG app published a month ago partially confirmed these fears. The team, led by professor of media law Marco Liesching, after evaluating the detailed data, found that the so-called “excessive blocking” principle actually worked.
Finally, even the social media corporations themselves admit that, when in doubt, they remove or block more than the law requires, thus covering themselves from possible fines. “And this is being done at the expense of freedom of expression,” Professor Liesching told German radio Deutschlandfunk.
Indirect censorship should not be allowed
Additionally, rather than checking social media users’ links to posted content that they believe is inappropriate, major telemedia providers make their decisions based on their own community standards rather than NetzDG, the study found. (The conclusion of this study confirms the assessment of the political scientist H. Abdel-Samad cited above).
“The boundary is where criminal law comes into play. However, allowing the platforms to delete records in their own opinion indirectly leads to censorship, and it cannot be, ”criticized Wolfgang Kubicki, vice president of the Bundestag, member of the Free Democrats (FDP), a lawyer whose book Freedom of Opinion. A Dangerous Game with Democracy “appeared in the fall of last year.
There is another aspect: the large telemedia providers carry out deletions automatically, even without waiting for a user of the social network to send them complaints. Let’s say YouTube, based on its own data, removed nearly 9 million videos worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2020, up 94 percent. they were automatically detected, according to the blog netzpolitik.org on telecommunications issues.
Returning to the words of H. Heine mentioned at the beginning: it is unlikely that the social network would have automatically detected and erased the poet’s perception of German slavery. Rather, the quote was captured by some user or ideological controller of this social network, and “complained” to H. Heine.
Commenting on the 19th century. Milosz Matuszek, a German and Swiss lawyer, journalist and publicist, wrote: “As can be seen, Heinrich Heine violates Facebook’s terms of use. But it is a constant source of dissatisfaction, which is why he will probably slowly roll over to the other side of his coffin in the Montmartre cemetery in Paris and, as he sleeps peacefully in the eternal twilight, he mutters to himself: “As you can see, I’m still right. ” And can you do it like this? Heine was forced to flee to Paris, banned in Nazi times and now, censored on Facebook! Because of so-called “hate speech,” a rubbery concept that today’s hyper-correct executives and digital gatekeepers have been stretched to ridicule. “
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